Friday, September 05, 2008

Artists and Republicans

CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time Blog Archive - Heart condemns McCain-Palin use of ‘Barracuda’ « - Blogs from CNN.com

I happened to watch a bit of Leno last night after the McCain speech. 100% down on Sara Palin, McCain and everything Republican -- to the point that he even lost his studio audience and had to make some lame statement about "tension in the room". There are always folks in the entertainment industry "condeming Republicans" in one way or another, but I always wonder if they really understand what that means.

I'm sure that the message of Heart is basically "We hate Republicans", which other than hate not being the nicest of emotions, is fine. I wonder if the Beatles ever condemned Charlie Manson's use of "Helter Skelter"? Somehow I doubt it.

I listen to NPR every day, and they are CONSTANTLY concerned about "how partisan Republicans are". I'm not really sure what "partisan" means other than "thinking differently in a group", which apparently NPR and Heart are actually against. Sooner or later, "diversity of thought" is going to mean that someone doesn't agree with you, and in fact you find their opinions to be "wrong" in some sense, maybe even a very significant sense. If "freedom" has any meaning, one would think that such "partisanship" would be very much expected. Having multiple competing ideas would seem to be a great way to figure out what works and what doesn't -- unless you are already certain that your ideas DON'T work and have realized that the only way to succeed is to suppress the ideas of the opposition.

The supposed "liberal folks" -- art, media, education, etc are drawn to a set of ideas that probably they even realize don't work. Radical income distribution, destruction of the family, inability to defend the nation militarily, anti-business, etc. When those ideas are put into practice, the only way they can "succeed" is with a dictator (since people won't vote for actual failure for long), who promptly destroys the individual rights that the arts, media and education depend on as well as the economic surplus (funds beyond food, clothing, shelter) that the more "elite" require to exist. It seems they are somehow forced to bite, and if possible even kill the very hand that "feeds" their existence.

Strangely, the modern "conservative" (which are actually the true "liberals") has no trouble liking BOTH Heart and "Sarah Barracuda".

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